Yamo

I'd prefer to see more dark and gritty stuff and less four-color, too. Here's hoping that we can get new material in the vein of the old Dark Champions stuff soon.

a) The weapon and armor dynamics in HERO are not even remotely "realistic." They're simply unrealistic in a different way than I'd prefer. Lightning bolt spells are against the laws of physics and nature, too. However, they don't harm the fantasy genre in the minds of most players. And if people shooting magic lightning out of their hands doesn't make you skip a beat, weapon anachronisms shouldn't even be a blip on your radar. c) We're talking about a D&D-style high fantasy campaign where martial artist monks bust through plate mail with their bare hands! If they can box a knight to death, who's going to notice if another guy can do one in with a rapier? d) Do you accept castles and other fortifications in fantasy games, where magic would render them nothing more than massively-expensive futile deathtraps?

Here's a thought: HERO is not a history lesson. HERO is a fantasy game. There were no dragons in medieval Europe, either. In a non-historical, non-realism-driven fantasy game, it's a perfectly reasonable goal to want to have the Three Musketeers and the Knights of the Round Table running around in the same setting and to want to have them be matches for each other in a swordfight. Historical assumptions, correct or otherwise, are uniformly irrelevent.

Fundamentally, you're correct. A common flaw between the systems is still a flaw, though. All I'm trying to do is balance the two character concepts in fights, but one having access to mega high DEF that costs no points is a huge hurdle.

Perhaps. But what the players want, the players get, or I play alone. I still believe that heavy armor as written in the HERO system rules is still too effective overall for Heroic fantasy, however.

No, I'm afraid that it's you who is not paying attention. As stated, heavy armor is neither expensive nor rare in the setting.

The STR doesn't strain the character concept to the breaking point. The heavy armor does. And if you have decent STR, there's no reason not to wear the armor because you'll be flat-out better than an otherwise identical character that doesn't with no associated point cost for such superiority. That's the problem.

Historically, yes. At the moment, though, we're running a D&D-style campaign where it's both cheap and plentiful. I've thought that perhaps magic items are the answer. If the swashbucker finds a magic ring that gives him 6 PD/6 ED armor, he's a little more balanced DEF-wise with the knight. Of course, then the knight will probably just go "Hey, I want me a magic ring, too!" and run to the nearest wizard. Then I have a 14 rDEF knight on my hands. Hard to do something like that without the other players wanting access to the same hardware.

Not sure what you mean, as I don't have the book yet. Can you explain this statement further? Yes, but then he's chugging around in tankmail and not really much of a swashbuckler anymore. That's the problem. Characters with the same point totals have no reason not to wear heavy armor, no matter what the source material says simply because they'll be vastly superior to their counterparts that don't. You have Gandalf in plate mail, Frodo in plate mail, Legolas in plate mail. Everybody and their mother in full plate armor because it's just stupid not to be. Blah.

And here's mine: Not necessarily. The STR needed to wear the armor with no penalty is so cheap that the knight can still afford to be 90%+ as effective as the swashbucker with respect to DEX and CSLs and still have all the extra PD, REC, STUN, Leaping and damage. Oh, and 8 more rDEF. See, here's the problem: All I would need to do is take the stats for the swashbucker you make up, ditch a point or two of DEX to raise STR up to 18 or 20, add tankmail and the result is a strictly better character. Exactly the same except as follows: Downsides: CV maybe one lower before CSLs, if that. Upsides: More PD. More REC. More STUN. More Leaping. More damage. More lifting/throwing ability. 8 more rDef. I know which warrior I'm putting my money on in a brawl, all other things being equal. So character with high STR and tankmail is still not balanced versus same character without.

I don't much care for this argument. It's not quite fair to imply that players are just twinking because they don't want to get uttery screwed by the system. Character concept is important, yes, but it's unfair to ask players who don't come to the table with a character concept of "armored tank" to take such an rules effectiveness hit versus those that do. The problem is that the system has a built-in roadblock that hinders certain character concepts in fantasy games. All the players want is to be treated fairly by said system (i.e. for their 150-point unarmored swashbucker to be as "good", generally-speaking, as their buddy's 150-point armored knight). That doesn't seem unreasonable to me and I wouldn't cast aspersion on their roleplaying ability for it.

STR is cheap in HERO and armor is light. What's stopping all the characters in my fantasy campaign from buying a 20 STR and full plate armor? It weighs in at maybe 40 kg, just 10% of their total weight allowance and not enough to impose any DCV/DEX Roll/movement penalties or long term END loss. Being equipment, it doesn't even cost points. And the high STR also has the crazily-efficient effect of boosing PD, REC, STUN, Leaping and damage. On the other hand, trying to build a lightly armed/armored swashbuckling type involves a high DEX (much more expensive than STR) and lots of extra DCV and Combat Luck, which do cost points (a lot in some cases, to get similar benefits as plate mail)). And even then you're probably dead the first time you take a solid hit, unlike your plated pals. Perhaps they'll mourn your inefficient character creation skills at your funeral. So why shouldn't everybody just be a tank, from the fighter to the wizard? The option seems just too powerful and cheap. From a purely metagame point-of-view, you'd almost be foolish not to, it seems. That's bad, in my experience. Thoughts.

Good point! That is true. Thanks.

Yes, but there's two problems with that: a) We have a pet peeve against special rules that only exist to give the players breaks versus the other characters in the game universe. If being dropped to -10 STUN kills an orc, it should kill a PC, too. I'm clearly going for a very gritty game. Heroes get killed, not knocked-out. Lose a swordfight and you usually get stabbed/slashed to death by your foe if he's smart. I'm going for Saving Private Ryan with crossbows and axes, not Xena: Warrior Princess.

a) Let's say we have a knight in late medieval plate mail. He gets peppered by a barrage of arrows, all of which glance off without penetrating his armor (he takes no BODY). However, the total STUN from all these deflected arrows knocks him deeply unconscious. Needless to say, this is ridiculous and completely out-of-genre. Nowhere in history or genre fiction does such a thing happen, yet it's a very plausable result of such an assault in game terms. Average attacks versus average DEFs are going to produce vastly more STUN than BODY damage. Yet the fantasy genre is usually more about cleaving through an orc in one mighty blow than battering said orc unconscious with your sword and then slitting his throat after the fight is over. How to cut down on these inappropriate results without eliminating STUN altogether (which, among other things, would make it impossible to knock somebody out under any circumstances)? Basically, I want people "downed" in combat to die more and go harmlessly unconscious less, but I don't want to eliminate STUN completely.

Enemies are smart. They will use placed shots. That 2d6 crossbow bolt is a little scarier to mister knight when it's aimed right between his eyes or at a completely unarmored point. Another solution is to set strict DEF limits. Five or six, say.

Just make sure your bad guys are smart enough to pack fancy high tech of their own. Like maybe some EMP pulse guns (20+d6 Dispel Versus All Technology Powers Simultaneously). Evil, but a GM's gotta do what a GM's gotta do.

Posted this question yesterday and got an answer today: I'm still lost. Based on the size of the object how? I looked in the FREd index under "object", "DCV", "size" and a multitude of other things and I found no reference at all to calculating the DCV of an object from its size (or by any other means). Does anybody know how to find what I'm looking for?

a) When it comes to determining if a Knocked Back character strikes an object in his flight path, the rules say: "If the structure or object is big enough, he'll hit it automatically. If it's small or narrow (for example, a tree), the character who did the Knockback damage should make make [tee hee] an Attack Roll using his base CV (calculated only from DEX, with no CSLs or other modifiers added) to see if he Knocked the target Back into the object." What's the DCV value used for this Attack Roll? The character who's been Knocked Back's? That doesn't seem to make sense, since he's flying back uncontrollably and his dodging ability should be nil. The object's? If so, how do you calculate a DEX-less object's DCV? Why does being in zero gravity lessen the effects of Knockback? Shouldn't it make you more prone to being batted around the battlefield?

I would do something like "Physical Limitation: Catches Fire On A 1d6 Roll Of 1 Or 2 Whenever Armor Is Penetrated."

With regard to the head,torso and vitals, the rules actually work out okay most of the time. Limbs are a problem, but I just use the "Breaking Limbs" rules on page 275 to handle them.

Just use Limited Power. Something like "Must Charge Up For X Full Phases Before Each Shot; -1/2)". Use Side Effects for the consequences of holding the charge too long.

Um, I did. No reference to being able to Rapid Fire two different attacks in one Phase.

Sad fact of life: Some game stores just aren't very good. I'd try another or shop online.

Is there a way to shoot two different targets with two different weapons in the same Phase? If I want to shoot them both with the same weapon, I can Rapid Fire it. If I want to shoot one of them with two different weapons at once, I can use a Multiple Power Attack. But what if I have, say, a magnum revolver in one hand and a laser pistol in the other and I want to shoot a different thug with each one simultaneously. Is there a rules-legal way to do that? I ask because I'm working on a character that routinely "dual wields" mismatched weapons of various types and this particular stunt is a big part of the fighting style I have in mind.